Friday, August 30, 2013

Morning Plenary Session with Dr. Jarralynn Agee

“...understand the concept of something that is exceptional,
that is so far outside for the curve that it stands alone.”

~ Dr. Jarralynn Agee

During the Plenary Session of the Phenomenal Women's Summit presented by Bishop Teresa Snorton on Friday, August 30, 2013, Dr. Jarralynn Agee, author and Professor at University of Alabama Birmingham, presented the Morning Plenary Session. The co-author (with Candace Sandy and Dawn Marie Daniels) of
Tears of Triumph, Women Learn to Live,
Love and Thrive and founder of Positive Pathways Program (P3), came with
share her wit, knowledge and wisdom.

“What is a hero’s journey?” asked Dr. Agee, echoing the
thoughts of the crowd, “How did I get to where I am today?”She mentioned the dichotomy of
being the sister of one sibling who went to Ohio State and another who went to
the “State Pen”.Dr. Agee
mentioned having to walk between the two worlds, never choosing because those
experiences shaped her life. She
had to learn how to be a Sistah girl and also use the Ohio Bell voice (the “professional
voice” used to get things done).

Dr. Agee brought to the conference her ideas of whom you
keep in your circle, who you keep as an association, and those you keep far
away.“What is a friend?” she
asks?The audience mentioned
“honesty”, “truth”, “Ride or Die”, and “unconditional love”.“There is a strong emotional bond to friendships”.Dr. Agee shared stories of her own life
and friends before engaging the audience in a conversation on the friend we
keep in our circles.

The discussion of friendship commences with the discernment
of different kinds of friends.“There are different kinds of friendships” said Dr. Agee, “spiritual
friendship, worldly friendship and unrooted friendship”. The friendships are
defined as follows:

¨worldly friendship – Thos who stand with you,
support your goals, see you for who you are right now, focus on you right now, and
celebrate your successes as they happen

¨unrooted friendship – stand behind you – but at
a distance, support your desires, see you for what you used to be, may relish
in your pain and personally or behind your back may celebrate your success.

Dr. Agee was certain to have everyone understand what
separates “goals” from “desires”.“Goals are things you want to reach versus desires which are things we
want to have.”The audience then
gave examples of people who were in their circle as spiritual friends.

“What keeps us stuck on other kinds of friends?” Dr. Agee
then asked. The audience responded that “the truth hurts” and “the inability to
see”.Dr. Agee brought up her
co-author, Candace Sandy, to discuss unrooted friends.“Unrooted friend place us in a box and
we believe them so we’ll put them there,” Sandy mentioned.These are “boxers” those who “put us
there - pack us up and wrap up the tape”. Using volunteers, the participants were able to identify traits
of unrooted friends (“those friends [that] keep people in the box and we stay there
because we are comfortable”).

Dr. Agee recommended to participants to work around the
“negative schema” the way of thinking about where the individual mindset lies
in state (the current place of where I am – happy) and the trait (what we carry
that will not change tomorrow – height.She encouraged participants
to determine, “Who are the believers in your life, who are you supporters?” and
only take along those persons who are the believers.

Dr. Agee concluded with visibly showing the circle of
influence, using audience members to design where physically people should
place their spiritual, worldly and unrooted friends.

The challenge of the session is for the phenomenal women to
not be afraid of success.“With
success comes responsibility,” declares Dr. Agee.She encouraged participants to think outside of who we are,
and pursue abundance.“If we were
willing to become everything that we are destined to become, we will be an
inspiration to others,” said Dr. Agee.“We ought to be selfish to help others.”